Brief Report

According to Berhaut, this autumnal scene, with its blues, greens and yellows, shows the view of an arm of the Seine from the Île Marande looking towards the village of Bezons [Berhaut 1994, p. 225]. That Caillebotte might really have painted this picture on site is indicated by an unpainted patch on the bottom edge, whose form and size suggest it is due to the fastening of a field easel typically used for open-air painting (fig. 12). The canvas, pre-primed in white, is the popular F 15 size and, as we see from a stencil verso, was obtained from Caillebotte's Parisian art-supplies dealer Dubus [Lewerentz 2008 pp. 274-275] (fig. 2). Without any compositional lay-in in the form of an underpainting or underdrawing, the artist executed the work probably in one or two sessions. To start with, he filled the parts of the picture with semi-transparent undercoats of paint in the respective local colour, before covering the surface with directional brush-strokes applied largely wetin- wet. In so doing, he placed large-areas of paint in the region of the sky and the water, applied thinly, right next to impasto dabs in the foliage and the reflections (figs 7, 8). A curious feature of this painting is the presence of two signatures both reading "G. Caillebotte", although the one in the bottom left-hand corner is now covered by a later overpainting and is only revealed by infrared reflectography (figs 5, 6). Both signatures were applied to the painting long after its completion, when the paint-layer was not only already dry but also showing signs of craquelure in places. The handwriting of the two signatures evinces considerable parallels, but no similarity with Caillebotte's own. In both cases, as so often in the work of this artist, we seem to have signatures applied posthumously either by his brother Martial or his executor Auguste Renoir [Berhaut 1994, p. 60]. Why a (presumably) first signature was rejected and a second then added in the bottom right-hand corner is unclear. Purely aesthetic motives may have played a part.

Gustave Caillebotte
Branch of the Seine, Autumn Atmosphere, 1890, oil on canvas, 65.0 x 54.5 cm, WRM Dep. 689

Gustave Caillebotte

born on 19 August 1848 in Paris,
died on 21 February 1894 in Gennevilliers

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso with graphic reproduction of the Dubus dealer's mark with measurements


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

UV fluorescence


Fig. 05

Details of the visible signature in the bottom right-hand corner, manual inscription is superimposed on early shrinkage cracks in the underlying paint-layer, microscopic photographs (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 06

Details of the overpainted signature bottom left in the IR reflectogram (top), in incident light (centre) and under UV (bottom)


Fig. 07

Detail, brushwork is oriented to the shape of the respective motif


Fig. 08

Detail under raking light, paint application varies from broad areas in the sky, using the whole brush-load, to short impasto dashes in the foliage


Fig. 09

Wet-in-wet and wet-on-dry paint applications, microscopic photograph (M = 1mm)


Fig. 10

Yellow to orange unidentified lake in the area of the yellow foliage, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 11

Loss in the paint-layer, view of the white ground with small proportions of black and red pigmentation, microscopic photographs (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 12

Detail, bottom edge of picture, unpainted patch presumably due to the canvas having been fastened to a field easel (red marking)